“Boldly I venture on a naval scene,
Nor fear the critic’s frown or pedant’s spleen.”
Falconer.
A shipwreck, at all times and under any circumstances, is a lamentable occurrence, but it is peculiarly so in instances where out of a whole ship’s company only one solitary individual is left to tell the tale. So far as is known to the compiler of the present work there have been only two such shipwrecks in Australian waters. One was the wreck of the emigrant ship Dunbar near Sydney Heads, Port Jackson, on the 20th August, 1857, when a seaman named Johnson—who is still living and permanently employed by the New South Wales Government, as a lighthouse-keeper at Newcastle—was the sole survivor out of 121 persons.
The other was that of the steamer Alert, near Melbourne Heads, Port Phillip, Victoria, on the 28th of December, 1893, and the relation of which forms the subject matter of these pages. The last named vessel had 16 persons on board and all, save one, perished either by drowning, or by being dashed to pieces against the cruel rocks. Disaster comes to us in all forms, but the stirring story told by Robert Ponting, the survivor from the Alert, partly lifts the veil and shows us how brave men can, and do, even under the most adverse circumstances, battle to the last against the mighty raging sea which finally engulphs them.
It might be fitly said in the language of the poet.
We ask thee, insatiable Deep!
How many lone ones weep
For friends who lie buried in thee?